A few weeks ago, I visited the house of a family I had known for some time. Their father had passed on at the age of one hundred, and I went to pay my respects. One person there reminded me of the time they had helped me to get a bed, some decades ago. Those were simpler times in Jordan. The neighborhood was still on the outskirts of Amman. It was undeveloped, shorn of the apartment blocks that now crowd out the sun. Goats roamed freely among the olive groves. The invasion of American goods and the internet was in the distant future. That bed was also a simple affair. It was a board of wood, balanced on two wooden cinderblocks of the type that a lumberjack might use to chop wood with his long- handled ax. I reflected on those simpler times. Possessions were few. But, most of all, connectivity was non-existent. We had time and space to worship, reflect and think. Tech played no part in treading the spiritual path. It just wasn't needed.
THE SUFI PATH AND TRADITIONAL ISLAM
Epitomes Read at Suhbas
Not far from the Red Sea town of Marsa Alam, the road turns left toward the maqam of Imam Abul Hasan al-Shadhili. For the next seventy miles, there are a handful of cars, and the only inhabitants are a few Nubian families, housed in small shacks dotted by the roadside. The landscape is sparse. There’s just a few scrubs, while in the distance mountains rise up. The road is good, and after an hour the maqam is visible. The town used to be nonexistent. Now, there are two thousand people living there, a school, some shops, and a beautiful new mosque built to the side of the maqam. It’s peaceful and quiet.
Overcoming addiction – whether to smartphones, messaging, video watching, Internet surfing, gaming, pornography, drugs, or any of the world’s allurements – is to overcome the nafs. And the first thing the salik knows about the nafs is that it is easily fooled. For the spirit to rise, we use the intellect to rein in the ego.
Nine years ago at the Cairo Suhba we said, “The Internet is death.” The repeated use of purposeless websites bends the fitra out of shape. For some people, their fitra bends so much it becomes irreversible. It’s just not possible to straighten them out. It was many years ago that Sheikh Yunus remarked to me about the dunya, “When it dominates, it takes captive.” We might say the same about the Internet. It too takes the human heart, spirit, and brain captive, trapping all in its web. When this happens and life is reduced to the size of a small screen, the effect of dhikr is reversed. The less one has to do with them, the stronger the dhikr. And so we wanted to say a few words today about messaging, because the pace of technological change is relentless, and this hurts human behavior and health.
The Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, said, “The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, though there is good in both.” Strength carries many meanings. It can mean strength of character or having a strong faith. The twelfth-century Andalusian Imam Qadi Iyad writes that “strong believer” also refers to physical strength. It is physical strength that we want to say a few words on, to encourage all of you, men and women, and especially teenagers, to start strength training.
Five thousand years ago a man walked through the Austrian Alps. His name was Otzi. In the hard winter months, Otzi trudged through mountain passes wearing snow shoes he himself had made. They were waterproof, warm, and fit perfectly to his feet. His outer garment was tightly woven from marsh grass. It was lightweight, waterproof, windproof, and easy to repair. At night it became a tent-like shelter, under which Otzi slept. The inner was lined with deerskin and fur, that kept Otzi warm and dry. The outer had decorative fur, culled from smaller animals, giving Otzi a pleasing appearance. He carried about him a medicinal pouch containing birch bark and other antibacterial plants to ward off infection. He had a second pouch for repairs, allowing him to fix up his garments. Otzi was intelligent and self-sufficient. He was at one with his harsh environment. He knew how to build shelter, start fires, and make sophisticated waterproof clothes from natural materials. He could treat an injury and make weapons, while travelling vast distances, guided only by nature, the sun, and the stars.
In 1980 a group of patients were admitted into the prestigious Mayo Clinic in the United States. They reported vague symptoms of fatigue and pain under their right rib. Upon testing, doctors found inflammation in their liver. They found scarring in and around the liver. There was inflammation that stopped the liver working properly. There was severe liver damage, and there was a build-up of fat in the liver. This was the first time doctors had seen a damaged, fatty liver in people that was not caused by alcohol. The presentation of these patients was so rare that the doctors had no name for this new disease. When one of the lead physicians published his findings he called the condition a “hitherto unnamed disease.” This was a brand-new disease that had not been seen in people before 1980.
It is a February evening in London and not yet late. A dense fog lies across the street, punctuated by a single lamp. Five friends climb into a black cab. One of the party leans back in his seat, staring transfixed at the rear window with a vacant eye. He reports that a giant Star of David is following the cab as it progresses down the street. His mouth moves up and down as if he were a goat. An hour passes, the party of friends become calm as they wind their way home. Their transport beckons and one of them obligingly climbs into the boot of the car, lies down, and shuts himself in. There he stays for the next hundred miles, oblivious to his surroundings.
Picture this scene. You roll out of bed, wash, and throw on some clothes, before heading out of the house. Still not fully awake, you buy a coffee as you head towards work. A few minutes later a jolt of caffeine reaches your brain, and you finally feel somewhat human again. Caffeine is not a health supplement. It is the most widely abused psychoactive stimulant on earth. Ingesting ever stronger, ever more frequent shots of caffeine is now the longest and largest unsupervised drug trial ever performed on the human race.
Seats and sitting are not usually associated with health. In London, in the 1950s, it was discovered that bus drivers died of heart disease, whereas bus conductors, on the same buses, did not. Their age and weight was the same, as was their diet. The only difference was that bus conductors spent all their working day on their feet, while bus drivers sat down. Yet in traditional Chinese medicine there is an organ in the body that is described as the ‘seat of health’ because of its importance for health, longevity, energy, memory, thoughts and mental health. That organ is the kidneys.
Heroin is the most addictive substance in the world. During the Vietnam War sixty percent of American soldiers took heroin. It was available on the airbase runway as soon as new recruits disembarked from their military flight, and it was available on military bases where ordinary Vietnamese cleaners would supply the drug. The military authorities turned a blind eye to this substance abuse until such time soldiers returned to the United States, where the scale of the problem was finally realized. The problem with taking heroin is that it has a ninety-five percent relapse rate. Only five percent of users give up the drug. There was clearly going to be a problem if hundreds of thousands of military veterans returned as lifelong heroin addicts. Only they didn’t. Upon their return from Vietnam fully ninety-five percent of U.S. heroin addicts simply gave up the drug with no medical or psychiatric intervention. This was a complete reversal of the normal trend for heroin addiction. After a large, nationwide study, lasting several years, it was found that the change in environment was enough to delete the desire for the most addictive substance in the world. Simply by returning home, being among friends and family, and changing their environment, was enough to cure those military heroin addicts.